It seemed that the more Holly struggled, the more delight the men took in their find. Holly didn't give up, not even after she had realized that she was being brought into the human village. Though, it seemed there were not very many humans around at the time. The entire experienced scared Holly beyond her belief and she found a renewed energy to escape and caused her to kick one of the men in the head once more.

That must've been the lucky hit, her cloven hooves hit one man square in the eye with enough force to cause him to cry out in pain and drop her legs, which he was carrying. Holly scrambled to her hooves, but the rest of the men easily caught her, she wasn't nearly as fast with an injured leg.

"Hold 'er still!" One man called. "There isn't any use in struggling, if we can't bring you to the cleaver, then the cleaver will come to you!" Holly didn't know what a cleaver was, but she wasn't planning to stick around to find out what it was. They tackled Holly to the dirt ground, one man even going as far as to put his dirty boot on top of Holly's head to keep her still. Holly's head was turned the other way, she didn't see when a heavy man with a large meat cleaver in his hand approached slowly. Though, Holly could smell him and hear him.

She continued to kick and struggle, doing her best to wiggle away from the men. She was beyond scared at that point, having not the chance to see what it was she was supposed to be afraid of and having not the chance to figure out where she was or what was happening. Her tail swished in the air and she tried to fight...

It happened so suddenly.... She felt her tail being grabbed and the next second, a sharp, terrible pain shot up from the base of her tail, into her spine and into her cranium. Holly screamed, the pain sending her into a monstrous frenzy and she was able to, (finally) overthrow her assailants and take off back into the woods...

The men yelled, "It got away!", "You idiot!"

Holly didn't stop running, she couldn't hear as one man said,

"We got what we wanted. It's weak without it's tail, it'll die alone in the woods and we'll come take the body and sell whatever else we can get. Faun are so rare these days, surely some witch would want its body for something...." The other men nodded, all proud of what they'd done.

. . . .

Holly ran as far and as fast as her injured leg would carry her. The fur on her backside felt cool and sticky, she was panting much harder than she'd done so before and the pain was unbelievable. Holly stumbled into a tree when her legs finally gave out. She didn't realize just how much she was crying until she'd stopped. She waited for a second, then two... She felt nothing on her legs. "W-what...?" Holly reached back to feel the base of her tail... She felt nausea sweep over her as there was nothing there but a horrible, wet, sticky stump of flesh. When she brought her fingers back around her body, she realized the wet, sticky substance was drying blood. They'd managed to take her tail!

Holly hissed when another wave of pain split through her spine. She felt... less. It was awful, and she felt as though she'd lost a part of herself. She had bruises scattered across her body from where she was manhandled. Holly dropped to the forest floor, crying.